DUALISM AND MONISM. I.-REALISM AND COMMON-SENSE; It is with pleasure that I point out and acknowledge that M. Dauriac, in his fresh and interesting treatment of the Realism of "Common-sense, and of Dualism and Monism, is more accurate and just in his dealing with the views of Reid and Hamilton than is at all usual in this country. It is obvious, at least, that he has read the authors whose doctrines he expounds and criticises, and that he seeks fairly to give them their place in the development of philosophical theory. This was to be expected from any one in sympathy with the course of French speculative thought, since, in the first part of this century, it was raised from the low level of the doctrine of Condilliac to what it became in Laromiguière, Maine de Biran, Jouffroy, and Cousin, and on through the men of Cousin's and other schools, who have added so brilliantly to the philosophical literature of France since. In the first place, M. Dauriac points out that the distinction between strong and weak states of consciousness, which Mr Herbert Spencer adopts, is simply Hume's discrimination of impressions and ideas. Mr Spencer imagines that vivacity and feebleness in the states of consciousness are sufficient to ground the inference of the distinction between externality and internality; that we can thus get the opposition of mine and not-mine, of subject and object, both really existing. The feeble states are related to me, the strong states to a not-me. This gives the very opposite of the conclusion which Hume drew from the premiss. He used it to ground the denial of external reality in any proper sense of the term. M. Dauriac holds that Hume was right; that such a distinction as that of external and internal cannot be thus obtained; that all states of consciousness, weak or strong, are to be regarded as equally mine. Hume here showed a truer appreciation of the position than Mr Spencer.1 This, of course, was the view of Hume's position taken by Reid and Hamilton alike. In the second place, M. Dauriac fully admits the reality and importance of the distinction between Sensation and Perception taken by Reid, and subsequently elaborated and somewhat modified by Hamilton. Further, he states Reid's position, at least, very fairly, as follows: 1. There is Sensation, an affection of me, the conscious subject. 2. This precedes Perception, an intuition of a quality not belonging to me, an attribute not mine, and involving the difference between the res extensa and the res cogitans. 3. This perception or intuition embraces a knowledge in which the essential qualities of things are given; I believe, because I know. Belief in external reality is not blind, but grounded on knowledge.2 While M. Dauriac admits the validity of the distinction between Sensation and Perception, he does not admit the metaphysical conclusion which he supposes Reid, and also 1 Croyance et Réalité, p. 133. 2 Ibid., p. 135. Hamilton, to have founded upon it-viz., the real and essential distinctness, yet simultaneous coexistence, of the res extensa and the res cogitans. He would allow only a phenomenal or empirical difference in this connection-an irreducible contrast of consciousness and extension. He proceeds to point out what seems to him to be the difference between Reid and Hamilton. Reid simply said, there is an intuition of external reality, of extension or the reality of an object. Hamilton went further, and showed that there must be such intuition. Reid declared, “It is so;" Hamilton argued, "It is absurd it should not be so." The latter, accordingly, not only admits the reality of the psychological intuition, but demonstrates its metaphysical necessity. Perception universally implies the knowledge of extension, and this knowledge is necessarily adequate to the being of the reality. The external world is more than tangent to the spirit, more than penetration of internal by external; that is, in sensation there is the necessity of the perceived extension. Hamilton thus changed the mere fact of the intuition into law. Extension is necessary to perception proper. In reference to |